They say that a child laughs on average 300 times a day, and an adult just 5 times. If that is true, it is pretty sad. I get how life can catch up with us; but at the end of the day what you see in the mirror is what other people see. If you smile, others are more likely to smile back. It’s an example of positive engagement.

Most successful people smile. Cause and effect.

I have nearly always worked for myself so I’ve never had the benefit of a senior in-company role model (though I have learned a lot from…

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They say that a child laughs on average 300 times a day, and an adult just 5 times. If that is true, it is pretty sad. I get how life can catch up with us; but at the end of the day what you see in the mirror is what other people see. If you smile, others are more likely to smile back. It’s an example of positive engagement.

Most successful people smile. Cause and effect.

I have nearly always worked for myself so I’ve never had the benefit of a senior in-company role model (though I have learned a lot from the people who worked with me in the various companies). So, when I started my first company in 1986 I sought out people from whom I could gain early experience and benefit from their wisdom. Positive engagement (as opposed to negative criticism) as a force for growth was one of the consistent themes in the guidance I received from these wonderful mentors.

Here are some of the things I learned that I try to practice everyday at The TAS Group:

Catch people doing something good.

In the rush to get things done, we often look at what is stopping us succeed, and there is nothing wrong with that when applied to oneself. But if you are constantly pointing out failures or weaknesses to the people who work for you, your interaction becomes very negative and demotivating. Make a conscious effort to celebrate small successes, catch people doing something good, and show your appreciation. It’s a positive experience for everyone.

Don’t give up on a past good performer who has recently stalled.

We have all seen this happen. A star performer loses his way and fails. Some managers will fail to look beyond the most recent result. It may be worth considering what macro conditions may have contributed to the failure. Good performers don’t just turn into bad performers. Look into it, and criticize the performance, not the performer.

It is not business – it’s personal.

This is one of the most trite sayings in business: “Sorry, but you understand it’s not personal – it’s business.” When people are fired, miss a bonus payment, get overlooked for promotion, or are forced to take a different role, it may be in the interest of the business, but for the individual involved it is also personal. Don’t pretend it is not. Think about their perspective.

Be vulnerable and share.

You don’t have all of the answers all of time. None of us has. It’s ok to occasionally share this uncertainty with the people who work for you (and your peers and your manager), look for their input and advice, or just use them as a sounding board. The days when this was viewed as a weakness are over. It shows respect and helps everyone learn.

Give without thinking.

Your engagement with your colleagues, whether you work for them, they report to you, or they are your peers, should not be viewed as a give-get negotiation. That’s not how trusted relationships are built. You give help when help is needed – not when you are looking for something in return. If the relationship is healthy you will reap the reward when you need it. If you never need it, the worst thing that has happened is that you helped someone.

Don’t expect things to change if you don’t.

There’s a wonderful cartoon where the first panel shows a speaker in a meeting asking “Who wants change?” Everyone in the crowd has their hand up. The second panel leads with “Who wants to change?”There are no hands up. Change can be difficult. If you want to see it happen in your team, you have to lead the way.

Look inside first.

When you’re frustrated, confused or disappointed and inclined to start a sentence with “I don’t understand how/why …” focus on the “I don’t understand” part. The problem may be your lack of understanding the issue. You might choose to rephrase to “Can you help me understand how/why …” Look inside first – it’s something you can change.

Finally, Smile :-)

It’s the easiest way to make people happy. Happy people are productive people.

]]>http://sales20network.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=243915 Steps to a Great Sales Insighthttp://sales20network.com/blog/?p=2430
http://sales20network.com/blog/?p=2430#commentsMon, 29 Dec 2014 15:59:07 +0000Donal Dalyhttp://sales20network.com/blog/?p=2430Much has been said about the need to bring insights to your customers. In today’s world of more informed buyers, it is clear that you need to do more than just communicate the capabilities of your product. However, not much has been written about how to do this well or consistently. Sellers are struggling to know where to start, and some sales and marketing organizations flounder when trying to build an ‘insight machine’ that scales. How can you ensure that your insight machine (a) delivers insights that customers appreciate and (b) guides them to your solutions?

According to Forrester Research, 64%…

]]>Much has been said about the need to bring insights to your customers. In today’s world of more informed buyers, it is clear that you need to do more than just communicate the capabilities of your product. However, not much has been written about how to do this well or consistently. Sellers are struggling to know where to start, and some sales and marketing organizations flounder when trying to build an ‘insight machine’ that scales. How can you ensure that your insight machine (a) delivers insights that customers appreciate and (b) guides them to your solutions?

According to Forrester Research, 64% of senior executives believe that the sales person does not know enough about their buyer’s business to bring any value to a meeting. In fact only 25% of them are prepared to take a second meeting. Think about this for a minute; three out of every four sales meetings are a waste of time and money – both for the seller and for the buyer.

A seller who adopts the buyer’s perspective in his approach to a customer meeting will engage a buyer more effectively. This is because he sees things as the buyer does. He inhabits their world, and speaks to their pains, challenges, and fears. Using insights as a core part of the sales engagement strategy forces this perspective and results in more successful sales calls. Recent research from SiriusDecisions indicates that providing industry and business expertise is four times more valuable than having product knowledge and developing good relationships. That’s the value of a well-designed insight.

Sometimes we can forget that being a customer is not necessarily easier than being a sales person. All the customer’s got to do is pick a supplier, right? But when the customer makes that buying decision, the risk shifts from the supplier to the customer. For a customer to be comfortable, she must be really sure that the supplier actually understands her needs. Demonstrating knowledge of your own products or solutions doesn’t help. You need to help the customer learn something (worthwhile) that she doesn’t already know. That’s how you build credibility.

Insights are different from traditional marketing messages.

Insights help your customers discover problems (or opportunities) that they didn’t know they had. Traditional marketing approaches sell to a buyer’s identified need. But, as Daniel Pink said in his book To Sell is Human, ‘your products and services?are far more valuable when your prospect is mistaken, confused, or completely clueless about their true problem’.

The purpose of an insight is not to confuse, but to illuminate. Unlike traditional marketing materials, the insights themselves provide something of intrinsic value to the customer. Insights teach the customer something that you want them to learn, but have inherent worth such that, in the extreme case, a customer should be not be adverse to paying for the insight itself. Traditional marketing messages tend to address just the need that the buyer has identified. Remember, that is what all of your competitors are doing as well, so it is hard to differentiate.

The Recipe for a Great Insight – 5 Ingredients

The core ingredients for a great sales insight exist in every company. When your engineers, product managers or product designers first built the product you are selling, they usually started with a customer problem that they were looking to solve. The solution they developed was designed to fix something that is broken in the customer’s organization, or provide a capability that doesn’t exist but is needed. Assuming that the product concept was well informed, the essence of those product design decisions should be the foundation on which you build your insights.

Unfortunately, in many cases, some of the ingredients for that great sales insight are lost on the journey from product designer to sales person. Good insights lead a customer to the unique value that you can provide with your solution. This is important. If your sales team is bringing insights to your customer that are not leading to your unique value, then your sales efforts become an expensive educational exercise, and you may end up educating the customer right into the arms of your competitor.

Insights are tremendously powerful when well crafted and used in the right context. However, this is one of those cases where if you can’t do it exceptionally well, you should not do it at all. You can fall on your face really easily.

1. Start with the ‘typical’ customer problem scenario: All customers are different, but few have truly unique problems – just problems that are not sufficiently well understood at a detail level in the context of that customer. Companies of a similar size, at the same stage of company maturity, in the same region, and serving the same markets tend to have similar business challenges. There are other attributes that apply, and while the issues vary by role and their ability to meet those challenges might diverge, the context generally remains the same (or at least similar). This is just how business works.

We all have Goals (or Key Business Requirements) and Business Pressures to which we have to respond. This is why we undertake Initiatives (or projects); to relieve those pressures so that we can achieve the goals. In essence, these Initiatives fix things that are broken or add things that don’t exist but are necessary for a successful initiative. I refer to these as Obstacles. Remember, the reason the product was built in the first place was to help fix something that was broken, or fill a gap in the market.

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2. Consider the Buying Personas: Companies don’t buy – people do. In a typical B2B scenario there will be multiple personas involved in the buying decision. Each of these will have different concerns and issues that they care about. If, for example, you are selling a Cloud-based CRM system, the VP Sales in the buyer’s organization may care about how the CRM will help with sales productivity, while the CIO is more likely to be concerned about the deployment effort and data security concerns. Insights must be designed with the buying persona in mind. In this example, it may be valuable to provide the CIO with insights around the relative cost-of-ownership of SaaS versus on-premise software. The VP Sales might care about that but probably not too much. He is much more likely to be interested in the ease of use for his sales team and access over mobile devices, and might see value in a whitepaper that discuss trends in mobility.

3. Make it interesting – add intrigue: While it is important to address the buyer’s stated needs, and demonstrate your understanding of how the buyer might deploy your solution to meet those needs, it is a lot more valuable if you can create that ‘Aha’ moment when the buyer says “That’s interesting, I never thought about it that way before – I can see how we might benefit from that approach”. You want to teach the customer something that you want them to learn. You have to bring something new to the table and make it interesting.

4. Lead to your solution: You can create an insight that leads to your solution if you have a deep understanding as to why the product was developed in the first place. This is where sales enablement and product marketing / management can deliver dramatic value to the sales team by synthesizing those specific capabilities that your product uniquely delivers that the customer should value, based on your understanding of their business. You want to use the insight to lead to your product’s capabilities mapped to the customer’s known or unknown needs, rather than use traditional marketing approaches to lead with the product.

5. Do Not (overtly) Self-Promote: As I said above, the insight you provide should have intrinsic value. Here are 12 Steps to Building a Great Sales Playbook; Check out your Sales Velocity Equation; 64% of sales calls are ineffective, are all examples of Insights (from The TAS Group) that all have intrinsic value – independently of whether the customer chooses to do business with the insight provider. They each cause the buyer to think in a potentially different way about the challenges or opportunities in front of them. Good examples of insights are things like 3rd party studies, survey results, or industry analysis. Anything that is overtly self-promotional, and presented as an insight does more harm than good. Datasheets, customer testimonials, or demo videos are not insights. Insights should really be vendor agnostic. Bear in mind that you are asking the buyer to spend their time consuming whatever you provide. Does the insight add value to their job? You should be using the insight to build credibility.

Making it Scale

What we are doing here with insights is designing for a crucial component of the buyer / seller interaction; the point at which credibility grows or dies. It is not reasonable (or responsible) to ask all of your salespeople to figure this out themselves. They just don’t have the time and are not as close to the problem as your product people were when they were building the product, or where your sales enablement people or product management / marketing should be. In many cases you will end up with marketing collateral masquerading as insights; or insights that are only lightly-informed and can’t flex when faced with any level of analysis; or, at worst, insights that have not been thought through well enough and in fact lead to a capability that you cannot provide.

There are too few sales and marketing organizations that package insights in a manner that can be consumed easily by an individual sales person and then shared with the customer. Even fewer have put the infrastructure in place to scale such a solution consistently across a sales team. This is where things typically fall down. I’ve seen marketing portals brimming with collateral, sales portals littered with data sheets and case studies, and CRM systems grinding to a halt under the weighty burden of content, content and more content. There is lots of content, but very little customer context. We need less content and more context.

Winning sales teams are gathering all of the raw information available from product experts, from marketing and customers, to deconstruct, process and repackage it with smart software so that everyone – sales, marketing and all customer facing personnel in your company – can apply it to facilitate good business conversations with customers that lead to the right solutions. Smart technology can help to connect your solutions to the customers’ business problem and deliver the right insights at the right time to the right persona.

In business, there are really only two things that you control; who you call on, and what you say when you get there. If you put the effort into deciding what customers you call on, you are much likely to be effective when you get there. This applies as much to individual sellers as it does to those responsible for developing the company’s strategic sales or marketing approach.

So, how do you decide where to spend your selling time in 2015? You need to decide where to prioritize your time, because not all account or opportunities (or markets) are equal.

How to…

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In business, there are really only two things that you control; who you call on, and what you say when you get there. If you put the effort into deciding what customers you call on, you are much likely to be effective when you get there. This applies as much to individual sellers as it does to those responsible for developing the company’s strategic sales or marketing approach.

So, how do you decide where to spend your selling time in 2015? You need to decide where to prioritize your time, because not all account or opportunities (or markets) are equal.

How to Get Started

In the simple graphic here I have listed 10 companies that I am considering for my 2015 sales plan. Some of these will be existing customers and some are prospects. There will likely be a broad span of company types (and opportunity size) spread across these accounts. When I encounter a large account with a lot of potential I will likely want to develop a complete account plan for that specific account, but I will get to that in a separate post. In the first instance I should prioritize these 10 accounts based on Current Revenues and Future Revenues.

If you have read my book Account Planning in Salesforce you will know that I always view an account or a set of accounts as a market(place). In that market, you want to be the market leader, and you want to cover as many market segments as possible, but only where the return justifies the effort, and where you can achieve meaningful segment penetration. ?In an ideal world you would like to cover 100% of the market. Realistically, because resources are scarce and your time is at a premium, you have to make choices and prioritize your efforts in areas that will generate the most opportunity. Plotting each of these accounts using Current Revenues and Futures Revenues as your guide will help you to determine your prioritized areas of focus.

Current Revenues: This is a picture of the business you are currently doing with your existing customers. Obviously you want to record the sales you achieved in this account over the past year, but you should also be mindful of the profitability of that business and the level of sales resource required to win or service those deals.

Future Revenues: This is much harder to assess than Current Revenues because much of the data required is subjective. In the chart above I have created a simplified version of Future Revenues so that if you don’t have an automated tool to help you it may provide you with a framework to get started.

You need to understand the profile of the customer’s business; how are they performing? Is the market growing? Equally well, you should obviously pay attention to the Opportunity Profile in that account; is there a good solution fit? What is the strategic value? Are there known short-term needs etc.? Finally, you might also consider your Relationships in each of these accounts.

Where to Focus?

For my sample 10 companies I have plotted Current Revenues and Future Revenues for each. Based on this analysis I have categorized each into separate quadrants.

In the A Quadrant, I have three accounts (Company 3, 4, and 7) where there are both high Current Revenues and an expectation of high Future Revenues. There is, in fact, a significant “gap” between our current situation and the revenue we could realize. If we don’t invest in these accounts it is likely that there will be a drop off in revenue. I should complete a full Account Plan for each of these accounts.

You can see in the B Quadrant, there are also three companies, and here I expect that there will be high Future Revenues for each of them. Once more, as in the A Quadrant, there is a significant “gap” between our current situation and the revenue we could realize. These should be part of my 2015 sales plan.

How I manage the accounts in the C Quadrant should now be a little different based on my analysis. The lower right-hand quadrant indicates there is no future potential over and above what we are currently getting. But you should consider how to protect your current revenue level and evaluate the consequence or impact if you don’t?

The lower left-hand D Quadrant is an easy one. There is a little current revenue and little or no future potential and these two accounts (Companies 2 and 8) might best be left to the marketing department to manage and nurture.

Standardizing Your Approach

It is always best to have a clear definition in your company as to what determines the fate of each account. The elements I used to assess Future Revenues are likely to be a little different in your own company. (See below a screen shot from Dealmaker Smart Account Manager that shows a more detailed example.)

You should consider the elements that you care about for Current Revenues and Future Revenues and be clear on definition of each of the elements. For example, you might have an internal debate to determine what High, Medium, or Low means in the context of last year’s closed revenue. Depending on your current go-to-market strategy you make not be as focused on the Opportunity Profit History as others, and might want to weight it accordingly. Make a conscious decision and then apply it consistently across all your territory or portfolio assessments.

As I said at the outset; there are really only two things that you control; who you call on, and what you say when you get there. As you plan for 2015, I strongly suggest you apply the adequate effort in selecting what accounts you pursue. It is worth the effort and will free you up to spend your time wisely on accounts where you can maximize the return on your effort.

]]>http://sales20network.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=24190(Sales) Interaction Designhttp://sales20network.com/blog/?p=2407
http://sales20network.com/blog/?p=2407#commentsSun, 14 Dec 2014 12:53:05 +0000Donal Dalyhttp://sales20network.com/blog/?p=2407I had an interesting discussion just the other day about the [putative] rise of social selling; increase in virtual, rather than physical, sales engagement; and the rush to redeploy field sales resources to inside sales. The topic being discussed was how, or if, a company should adjust its sales strategy to accommodate or leverage these new capabilities. I have a few thoughts about this and I would welcome your opinion.

There is a growing body of opinion that these “trends” (social, virtual, inside) are the ‘new normal’, and unless you quickly adopt them, and switch your investments from other (possibly successful)…

]]>I had an interesting discussion just the other day about the [putative] rise of social selling; increase in virtual, rather than physical, sales engagement; and the rush to redeploy field sales resources to inside sales. The topic being discussed was how, or if, a company should adjust its sales strategy to accommodate or leverage these new capabilities. I have a few thoughts about this and I would welcome your opinion.

There is a growing body of opinion that these “trends” (social, virtual, inside) are the ‘new normal’, and unless you quickly adopt them, and switch your investments from other (possibly successful) models, that you are doomed to failure. I shudder at the thought of this.

With any ‘new paradigm’ in sales and marketing there is a need to consider why the paradigm is emerging and how this new facility, or modality of engagement, impacts the blueprint for the interaction between buyer and seller.

I refer to the creation of this blueprint as Interaction Design, a term perhaps more frequently used by UX or other professionals who concern themselves with how a user will interact with technology.

Interaction Design focuses on creating engaging interfaces with well thought out behaviors. Understanding how users and technology communicate with each other is fundamental to this field. With this understanding, you can anticipate how someone might interact with the system, fix problems early, as well as invent new ways of doing things. (Ref: usability.gov)

Shouldn’t sales and marketing professionals be concerned with understanding the communication with their customers? Isn’t there great value to be had if you could anticipate how a buyer might interact with the [sales and marketing go to market] system, fix problems early, as well as invent new ways of doing things?

Interaction Design should be applied to how a sales person, or a whole company’s sales and marketing organization, interacts with customers throughout all of the phases of a selling or buying cycle. We know that the combination of company, brand, or product impacts customer loyalty less that the sales experience – the actual interaction with the seller. So shouldn’t we be looking to provide our buyers with a great ‘user experience’?

I am not saying that there is not value in social, virtual and inside – not at all. But in the absence of deeply considered deployment, we run the risk of damaging the buyer’s user experience. We first need to design the sales interaction in painstaking detail. Otherwise we will burn cycles, prospects, customers, and the careers of our sales people, in pursuit of these latest trends. Thinking long and hard about how the customer will want to engage in the buyer/seller interaction is not necessarily easy, but as a carpenter, tailor or surgeon will tell you, it is always better to measure twice and cut once.

The challenge we now face is that with the proliferation of automation fueling social, inside and virtual, we have an opportunity to screw up our sales efforts really quickly. Just because it scales, doesn’t mean we should do it – at least not until the design work has been done. The corollary of this of course is that if your competitors have figured it out before you before you do, then you will be a competitive disadvantage. That’s one of the conundrums we face in a world with such advances in technology and rapidly evolving dynamics. Still, better to be late than to destroy what you have while trying to be early.

Taking a customer-first perspective in all that you do helps to ensure that your buyer has a better user experience. Once the ideal interaction has been designed, you can visualize how the engagement happens – from the customer’s perspective – see what outcome you want at each point in the interaction, and then see how social, virtual and inside can help accelerate the velocity of the interactions for increased effectiveness or equal effectiveness with greater efficiency.

At one time while Ron Johnson was Senior Vice President of Retail Operations at Apple he challenged Steve Jobs with an Interaction Design problem. As the company was just about to open its first retail store in May 2001, Johnson was riding with Steve Jobs to a weekly planning meeting. “We’ve organized it like a retail store around products, but if Apple’s going to organize around activities like music and movies, well, the store should be organized around music and movies and things you do,’” Johnson confessed. Jobs turned to him and said, “Do you know how big a change that is? I don’t have time to redesign the store.”

Ten minutes later, Jobs walked into the meeting and said, “Well, Ron thinks our store is all wrong. And he’s right, so I’m going to leave now. And Ron, you work with the team and design the store.” That lesson of doing things well “carried through to so many things I’ve done,” recalls Johnson. “It’s not about speed to market. It’s really about doing your level best.”

Well said. “It’s not about speed to market. It’s really about doing your level best.”

Sometimes starting over can be the best place to begin, and sometimes you can leverage what you have already in place. You just have to design for the interactions you are looking to accelerate, and understand the capabilities (or deficiencies) in new technologies or trends. The story begins and ends with the customer.

This is not the way it’s meant to be. It’s far too complicated. Christy Dignam’s plaintiff voice crept out from the Bang and Olufsen surround sound system in Jack Swenson’s new 7 Series. Jack always felt that Dignam, the lead singer of Irish rock band Aslan, was one of the world’s undiscovered singers. “Damn right, it’s far too complicated” Jack mused as he nudged the BMW forward on San Francisco’s Montgomery Street.

As CMO of JKHiggs, Jack was thinking about his conversation with Matt Langton, one of JKHiggs’ star sales performers. Or, perhaps better said, one of the company’s past star performers.…

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This is not the way it’s meant to be. It’s far too complicated. Christy Dignam’s plaintiff voice crept out from the Bang and Olufsen surround sound system in Jack Swenson’s new 7 Series. Jack always felt that Dignam, the lead singer of Irish rock band Aslan, was one of the world’s undiscovered singers. “Damn right, it’s far too complicated” Jack mused as he nudged the BMW forward on San Francisco’s Montgomery Street.

As CMO of JKHiggs, Jack was thinking about his conversation with Matt Langton, one of JKHiggs’ star sales performers. Or, perhaps better said, one of the company’s past star performers. Matt’s results had not been great recently, and Matt felt that Jack and his marketing team were to blame. Jack was going to meet his CEO, Kelley O’ Brien at the Starbucks near the Hyatt on Drumm St, just around the corner from JKHiggs’ new offices on California. Matt had told Kelley about the loss of the DeepEarth Oil account to Innopartners and Kelley wanted to discuss it.

Kelley was already sipping her double espresso when Jack arrived at the coffee shop.

“Sorry, traffic on Montgomery was just a nightmare.”

“Sit down Jack. Here’s what I heard.” quipped Kelley, flicking through her iPad. “Matt, one of our top performers, just lost DeepEarth to a new sales person from Innopartners. He’s not happy. Frank, our sales leader is not happy. I’m not happy. They’re the facts.”

“Now the opinion: Matt thinks that Innopartners – or at least this Mandy Adamson person who won the deal – are better equipped to compete than us. I called Joanne over at DeepEarth, and it seems she agrees. She says that Mandy unveiled for her a whole new set of issues to think about in her business. She deflected a little when I asked her if she thought that Innopartners has a better solution than Dynamix14, but I’d say she thinks it is good enough for what she needs. All of the R&D we put into Dynamix14 makes no difference. Joanne thinks that Mandy rocks and knows more about her business. Given that we did not bring any fresh insight, or new perspective, Matt’s credibility, and ours, is now damaged. What’s your plan Jack?”

When Kelley had suggested they meet for coffee, Jack had expected an open discussion. Kelley was the main attraction that brought him to JKHiggs. He enjoyed spending time with her and often sought her advice on big corporate issues. He certainly was not expecting this frontal attack.

“I think you know that I agreed with Frank that what his sales team wanted was a central repository for all marketing collateral. Suzanne and Robert worked their butts off to get that done but the sales guys are just not using it.” Jack shuffled in his seat, waiting for Kelley’s response. She was just looking at him with no reaction, so Jack continued. “Frank committed to me that his team would follow-up all of the leads, but over the last quarter, only 47 percent of what marketing delivered was acted on by sales. What else does Frank want me to do?”

Kelley sighed. “Do you have some paper and a pen?”

Jack rummaged in his bag and handed Kelley one of the expensive JKHiggs branded leather-bound notebooks. He liked the feel of the quality leather and felt that it would give people like Joanne at DeepEarth a sense of the heritage of JKHiggs. He hadn’t really got to meet many customers since he ordered the notebooks, so he had plenty left.

Kelley opened the notebook and drew a big triangle on a blank page. At the left edge of the base of the triangle she wrote the letter ‘S’. At the other end of the triangle’s base she scratched a capital ‘M’, and at the apex of the triangle she put a big question mark.

“Jack, winners take ownership and take action, so let’s fix this. Frank will be joining us soon to give us his perspective as our sales leader – actually, he should be here by now – but, here’s how we have to think about it.”

Kelley turned the notebook to face Jack and ran her finger along the base of the triangle.

“This is where you and Frank are focused. ‘S’ is sales, and you can figure out that ‘M’ is marketing, right? You’ve both invested a lot of time in trying to make sure you are on the same page. You agreed to build the marketing portal and he agreed to follow-up on the leads, right? You both probably think you have nailed this sales and marketing alignment thing. You’re probably on the same page alright, but is it the right page?”

Jack’s emotions tumbled over each other as competing feelings and thoughts fought to come to the surface. Was he going to get fired? Wow, even thinking about that seemed weird. His record throughout his career was stellar, but did he still have his finger on the pulse of the market? Did Frank or Matt Langton throw him under the bus? Was his relationship with Kelley as special as he thought? Where the hell was Frank? Was this incident at DeepEarth as big a deal as Kelley seemed to think? Have things changed that much? He realized that he really wanted to keep working with Kelley. But what did she mean by the big question mark at the apex of the triangle?

“Look Kell’, we know each other well enough. Where are you going with this? Do you want me out of Higgs? I don’t think that would be in the best interest of the company, but if you don’t want me here I don’t want to be here. And where is Frank? I thought you expected him by now. And what’s behind the bloody question mark?”

“Stop Jack, ok? I want you working closely with me to figure this out. I’m surprised you don’t know that. Really. But, I’m CEO of JKHiggs and we have a strategic problem that we need to fix. So let’s move on.

“I sent Frank to meet with Mandy Adamson from Innopartners. I told him to get her to come to work here – money no object. We need to figure out why Joanne at DeepEarth is so enthralled with her. Joanne is no one’s lay-up, if you know what I mean.

And what’s behind the bloody question mark, as you call it, is the most important question we need to answer, if we are to survive.”

Jack leaned forward. He loved that Kelley had sent Frank out to poach Mandy Adamson from the competition. He was relieved that Kelley saw him as part of the solution, not part of the problem. He was beginning to see where Kelley was going. He thought he knew what the question mark signified.

“That’s brilliant, just brilliant. If we can get Mandy Adamson in, I think we can learn a lot. But isn’t that just part of the problem? I know the DeepEarth loss is really painful, but maybe it’s just the wake-up call that we needed. Let’s get to the question mark on your drawing there. I think I see where you’re headed.”

“Jack, before I answer that – and it is the most important question we need to answer – one last thing.” Kelley smiled, put her elbows on the table and cupped her chin in her hands. “Do you know why we developed the Dynamix14 product? Do you know, and do you think Matt Langton could tell us?”

Jack chuckled to himself, thinking that it must be Kelley’s Irish heritage that meant that she often answered a question with a question. Kelley’s grandparents had immigrated to the United States from Ireland in the 1950s and she had often visited. In more recent times, as Ireland had become the technology hub in Europe, JKHiggs had set up their European HQ in Dublin, alongside Google, Facebook, Salesforce and many other leading software companies. There was something about Irish creativity that seemed to make for great innovation. It was on one of Jack’s visits to Dublin that he had first come across Aslan, and the Irish band’s back catalog was a staple on Jack’s iPod.

“Well I know what our esteemed head of engineering would say. Henry is really proud of the world-beating energy efficiencies from Dynamix14. I guess that is what Matt would tell his customers as well, though now that I say it out loud, that doesn’t seem to be working, does it?”

Kelley circled the question mark at the third point of the triangle. “That’s just the problem. We didn’t build it because it delivers world-beating energy efficiencies.” She circled the question mark again. “What’s really critical for everyone to understand, and for our sales team, and your marketing team to communicate, is that our customers need exceptional energy efficiencies to deal with things like the Kyoto Protocol and that’s why we invested heavily in R&D on Dynamix14.“

“Behind this question mark is a customer, and behind every customer is a series of business goals and pressures that they need to solve for. Our job is to help them shape the projects they need to initiate to relieve those pressures, and to identify what’s stopping them being successful today. That’s what Innopartners did for DeepEarth. Mandy helped Joanne get a better understanding of her business and what she might need to consider if she is to get ahead of the Climate Change issues.”

Jack understood that the Kyoto Protocol puts a heavy burden on developed nations, who through 150 years of industrial activity had created a big emissions and climate change problem. He just never connected it to the fact that JKHiggs could help businesses like DeepEarth Oil to respond. He never considered that this might be how the sales team should frame the issues they could solve with Dynamix14.

“You are so right. I can’t believe I didn’t see it this way. “ Jack wrote down four headings: Goals, Pressures, Initiatives and Obstacles. “Our customers can learn everything they need to know about our products from the Internet – so we need to think about this in an entirely new way. We have to be Customer-First in everything that we do and how we sell. We need to focus on their business issues first, before our products, or we are going to be in real trouble.”

As Jack sat back to think, Kelley’s phone pinged with an incoming text message. She glanced at the phone, and then slowly and deliberately put the phone down on the table.

“Jack, it just got much tougher. Frank has just resigned. He is joining Innopartners to lead their West coast sales team. He says Innopartners are more in tune with the customer than Higgs. Damn!”

-o-

The message here of course is that Kelley has recognized this as a strategically important issue for the company. Unless you take a customer-first approach to your sales and marketing efforts you are unlikely to be successful.

There was a time, long, long ago in a dim and distant past when, if you were in sales, the company you worked for and the product you sold were more important than how you personally sold. You may remember the ‘No one gets fired for buying IBM’ adage. Buying from a market leader was often seen as the obvious (and safest) path for a buyer to take.

But the world has moved on. Established companies are being disrupted. Remember Kodak? Did we ever think we would see Microsoft’s dominance of the desktop challenged? What about the decline of Nokia and Blackberry?

In…

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There was a time, long, long ago in a dim and distant past when, if you were in sales, the company you worked for and the product you sold were more important than how you personally sold. You may remember the ‘No one gets fired for buying IBM’ adage. Buying from a market leader was often seen as the obvious (and safest) path for a buyer to take.

But the world has moved on. Established companies are being disrupted. Remember Kodak? Did we ever think we would see Microsoft’s dominance of the desktop challenged? What about the decline of Nokia and Blackberry?

In the past, buyers were informed by large companies with large marketing budgets and usually made their selection from a shortlist of the market leaders. That has changed.

We have all witnessed the democratization of information. As buyers become ever smarter (more knowledgeable really), they have more options available to them, and, contrary to some recent theories, the importance of the salesperson has increased. How you sell is much more important that what you sell – and the effectiveness of how you sell is determined solely by your credibility in front of the buyer.

If you, as the salesperson, can’t demonstrate credibility when meeting with your buyer, you will fail. It is as stark as that. It is the reason why senior executives (in the buying organization) take follow-up sales meeting in just 25% of cases.

Remember, the impact on a customer of a bad buying decision is usually greater than the impact on a sales person of a lost deal.

Here are 5 sales credibility killers you need to avoid:

Better than your own solutions, you need to know your customer. That requires a deep understanding of the challenges that face each of the key roles in the customer organization (in the area that you can impact). Only then can you offer a solution to meet those needs. Unless you can show that you understand the impact on the customer of the project they are contemplating then it is hard to position your product as a solution that will optimize the outcome.

It used to be the case that your job as a seller was to communicate the value of your product. Now, if you have a half-decent website, the buyer can educate themselves on your product (and can do the same with your competitors) so you better show up with something better that demonstrates how you can uniquely create, not just communicate, value. If you start the conversation with “Let me tell you about our products”, your credibility will be shot, right out of the gate. Instead, accelerate your credibility by bringing market insights to your customer.

Marketing works hard to produce product datasheets, presentations and solution overviews. If you lead your sales conversations with these materials you will likely be categorized as a non-value-adding vendor. But the better marketing departments also deliver “vendor agnostic” insight pieces that, when used correctly, change sales conversations with buyers by disrupting current thinking and bringing new perspectives that lead back to your solution. Start there and then use the product-focused materials when the customer asks for more information.

Gone are the days where sellers can just knock on the door of the corner office and close a deal. In a world of increasing complexity, today’s buyers are much more aware of the need to operationalize changes in their organizations. That typically requires the support and expertise of many players. Asking for the order, without addressing the needs of each of these individuals, and helping them to understand the internal relationships between those needs, will likely underline the fact that you don’t understand how their business works. Your job is to help them build consensus around their interdependent needs.

If there is one way to ensure you have a sub-zero credibility rating with your buyer, ask the dreaded question. Let’s imagine you have a meeting with a senior influencer in the buyer’s organization. She has taken time out of her busy day because she has a business problem she is trying to solve. She is hoping that you can provide some guidance. And then you make that fatal mistake. You open the conversation with “So, tell me about your business. What keeps you up at night?” There is no way back from here. You must know about her business, have a good sense of the problems she faces, and what keeps her awake at night. You should have ideas to share, experiences that you have gleaned from other similar companies, or expertise you from your colleagues or experts in your own company.

Credibility and its co-traveler trust are the most valuable currencies you have. They are hard to earn and must be spent wisely.

Have I missed any credibility landmines? Are their horror stories you’ve heard or witnessed? What other mis-steps should sales people avoid?

[Disclosure: The TAS Group has a particular interest in this area and we are privileged to work with progressive sales and marketing organizations to solve this problem in a scalable way using Dealmaker Align.]

]]>http://sales20network.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=23711Salesforce Sales Leadership Forum: 3 Key Takeawayshttp://sales20network.com/blog/?p=2329
http://sales20network.com/blog/?p=2329#commentsThu, 04 Dec 2014 13:55:25 +0000Donal Dalyhttp://sales20network.com/blog/?p=2329Salesforce is the world’s largest cloud company, and many businesses around the world run their businesses on one, or a combination, of their solutions. So it would seem logical that Salesforce could provide a focal point for companies to exchange business ideas and best practices. I participated in an event recently that was designed by Salesforce to be just such a forum for Sales Leaders.

The stated objective of the event (part of a broader program) was to provide an opportunity for Salesforce customers to hear from trusted sales thought-leaders on the changing trends in sales, share best practices and innovations…

]]>Salesforce is the world’s largest cloud company, and many businesses around the world run their businesses on one, or a combination, of their solutions. So it would seem logical that Salesforce could provide a focal point for companies to exchange business ideas and best practices. I participated in an event recently that was designed by Salesforce to be just such a forum for Sales Leaders.

The stated objective of the event (part of a broader program) was to provide an opportunity for Salesforce customers to hear from trusted sales thought-leaders on the changing trends in sales, share best practices and innovations with their peers in the sales leadership community, and of course network.

I was delighted to be asked to participate, along with Linda Crawford – EVP Sales Cloud, Salesforce, and Brent Adamson from CEB. What I particularly liked about this event was that Salesforce delivered on the promise; i.e. this was a sales leadership forum, not a Salesforce sales event. Brent and I were given equal billing with Linda, and the majority of the energy was spent on sharing thoughts and ideas with customers. The feedback from the attendees was that the three companies seem to work really well together. We actually have been working very closely together for some time now and each brings different value – but it is to Salesforce’s credit that they enable this for their customers, in a collaborative environment.

(We actually did a similar event the previous day in Amsterdam with a different CEB representative who had different but equally valuable perspectives.)

Here are my three key takeaways from the day:

Salesforce is all in on mobile

With an estimated 5B smartphones in our hands by 2017, it is probably fair to say that every sales person that Salesforce cares about will need to be served on their mobile device. In fact, as we walk around with smartphones in our pockets everyday, we give little thought to the personal and business productivity apps that we use everyday without even thinking about it.

Linda Crawford highlighted the analysis from Gartner that suggests that 2016, 55% of salespeople will access sales applications exclusively through smartphones or tablets. One of the things I have noticed at Salesforce over the years is that they don’t do 50% commitment. It’s all in or not in. There is no question about it. Clearly Salesforce is all in on mobile.

Eileen O’Mara, VP Sales EMEA at Salesforce gave a very impressive demo of how Salesforce runs its business from the phone that also included the Political Map component from our Dealmaker app.

90% of World’s Data was created in the last 2 years

I’ve known this for a while – but it is still mind blowing. Linda illuminated this effectively as she recounted the journey from the mainframe (thousand of connections) to Client/Server (millions), on to the recent Internet (Billions) and the future of the Connected Customer (Trillions).

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The question of course is “What do you do with all of the data?’. Life is a game of truth, not a game of data, and there is risk in relying on correlations and pattern matching to predict outcomes of prescribe behaviors.

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‘Customer First’ really means ‘Customer First’

There used to be a time, a long, long time ago, when a sales person would trade information about their products and services for information from the customer on their business. “Tell me about your business and I can tell you about my products and how you can use them in your business.” That time is gone. Customers can learn everything they need to know online. So what do you have to trade? Linda talked about the need for greater insight into your customers’ business and that fact that according to Gallup, 66% of companies do not have an in-depth understanding of their customers. That’s a real issue.

The ever-energizing and entertaining Brent Adamson from CEB took this point to the max, infusing his perspective with pithy anecdotes and real data.

On average, 57% of the buying process is completed before a buyer contacts a supplier. (I wrote a mini-book about this: Battling the 57%)

The biggest driver (53%) of customer loyalty is the Sales Experience. Company/Brand, and Product/Service, count much less (each at 19%).

Brent went on to describe what a good Sales Experience looks like from the customer’s perspective: The sales person should bring a unique, valuable perspectives on the business, help the customer navigate alternatives?and avoid potential mistakes.

The customer matters. Insight matters. Your sales credibility is on the line.

]]>http://sales20network.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=23290Executing your 2015 Account Planhttp://sales20network.com/blog/?p=2353
http://sales20network.com/blog/?p=2353#commentsFri, 28 Nov 2014 10:59:24 +0000Donal Dalyhttp://sales20network.com/blog/?p=2353One of my early observations of sales methodology was that it was very hard for sales professionals to execute on their Account Plan. There was lots of valuable strategy to use, but very little support on the practical execution. (That was why we developed Dealmaker). Developing a plan has limited benefit unless you have the requisite tools and action plan to help you follow through. In this post, I give a short summary of an account planning approach and detail how you might think about your action plan.

]]>One of my early observations of sales methodology was that it was very hard for sales professionals to execute on their Account Plan. There was lots of valuable strategy to use, but very little support on the practical execution. (That was why we developed Dealmaker). Developing a plan has limited benefit unless you have the requisite tools and action plan to help you follow through. In this post, I give a short summary of an account planning approach and detail how you might think about your action plan.

In my book Account Planning in Salesforce, I set out three basic themes or phases for your account plan, and ifyou are developing your plan for next year, you should keep these themes in mind.

Research for Insight: Account Planning is strategic business planning applied on an individual customer basis. Research, as you know, is not limited to the customer. It must also encompass all of the Three Cs: Customer, Competitor and Company. If you do your homework on the Account, and apply the experience you have gained from working with other customers, you should be able to bring insight to the customer. If you don’t do the research, then you won’t have the knowledge, and then you can’t bring insight – and that is a missed opportunity.

Integrate for Velocity: There are four primary sources of input to your Account Plan that you needed to integrate to achieve maximum velocity.

Existing CRM data in Salesforce (or other CRM).

Knowledge of the Account Team.

Information shared by the customer.

Supplementary data from research sources such as Data.com.

Without a centralized way to manage the plan, velocity and effectiveness suffer. Integrating your team and the customer with the data in Salesforce and the pertinent data from supplementary data sources is the only way to provide a single sharable resource.

Focus for Impact: Focus is the parallel thread that runs alongside Mutual Value from the beginning to the end of Account Planning. It is in fact the catalyst for Mutual Value as you prioritize the Plan Units in your Account Plan and target the opportunities on which to focus where you can uniquely and competitively deliver maximum value.

As you become master of your plan, you’re also on your way to becoming a leader in your own marketplace. You understand business goals and pressures, initiatives the customer might consider, and the obstacles they must overcome to be successful.

Winning account teams respond to these goals and pressures, initiatives and the obstacles and work collaboratively to discover or deliver:

Information to create alignment between your actions and the customer’s business objectives.

Insight to see where the new opportunities are within the account, and to track the actions taken to pursue those opportunities.

Demonstration of professionalism through deep understanding of the customer’s needs.

Justification to secure scarce resources from management.

Co-ordination among the team in a goal-oriented fashion.

An action plan.

This last piece, the action plan, comprises the directional signposts that point to the attainment of your goal. Experienced practitioners develop Objectives, Strategies and Actions that transform the plan into a sequence of actionable steps that you can be progressed.

It is best to think about objectives in three categories:

Revenue Objectives: Current opportunities that you are pursuing need a Revenue Objective. You should have one for each Plan Unit (Division or Account) that you have selected, focusing on the combined revenue from your current opportunities in that unit over the duration of the plan.

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Business Development Objective: Every Plan Unit that has a Potential Opportunity needs a Business Development Objective that focuses on qualifying, in the short term, your future opportunities.

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Account Objectives: In addition to Revenue and Business Development Objectives, you also might require broader objectives that apply either to the Plan Unit, or to all of the Plan Units that you have included in your plan. These objectives – that might include Marketing, Partnering, Relationship, etc. ensure that you utilize all of the resources available to you to effectively maximize your position.

Planning on its own can be valuable to help you to frame your thinking, but the execution of the plan is where you will derive the most benefit.

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]]>http://sales20network.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=23530A Sales Story for Our Timehttp://sales20network.com/blog/?p=2324
http://sales20network.com/blog/?p=2324#commentsTue, 25 Nov 2014 09:49:02 +0000Donal Dalyhttp://sales20network.com/blog/?p=2324When Matt finished the meeting, he was angry. His biggest customer just told him that she had placed a big order with a new supplier.

“You know it’s not you. I like working with you Matt. How long are we working together? It’s been a long time.” Said Joanne, the EVP Operations at DeepEarth Oil, “But Mandy Adamson at Innopartners – she blew us away. I know they are a little more expensive than you, but Mandy agreed to share her vision with the whole executive team as well at our next exec QBR. She helped me think about this company…

]]>When Matt finished the meeting, he was angry. His biggest customer just told him that she had placed a big order with a new supplier.

“You know it’s not you. I like working with you Matt. How long are we working together? It’s been a long time.” Said Joanne, the EVP Operations at DeepEarth Oil, “But Mandy Adamson at Innopartners – she blew us away. I know they are a little more expensive than you, but Mandy agreed to share her vision with the whole executive team as well at our next exec QBR. She helped me think about this company – this industry really – in a whole new way.“

Matt knew Innopartners. He beat them in most competitive situations – even with brand new customers. His solution was superior to theirs, and he certainly did not expect them to unseat him. This was deeply aggravating. Mandy Adamson? Matt thought he knew most of the sales team there, but he had not come across the name Mandy Adamson before.

And yes, he was angry too; angry at himself for listening to Jack, the Chief Marketing Officer at JKHiggs Global. “Just present Dynamix14 this way and focus on the energy saving. That’s our key differentiator.” he said, “And be sure the customer knows that we’ve been in this market longer than anyone else.” He was going to have a reality check conversation with Jack as soon as he got back to the office.

When Matt checked his phone, he was glad to see a message from his friend Tom. Before Tom left to start his own business, he and Matt had been in the trenches together for seven years and had become good friends. Now that Tom was building his new business he had little time to socialize.

Turning the corner as he walked towards his car, the sky darkened and Matt was buffeted by a chill wind. Under grey skies, he looked for something to brighten the day. Dialing Tom, hoping he’d be free for lunch or a coffee, he wondered what Tom would think about what he planned to say to his CMO Jack later.

“Has your chandelier popped a bulb? Is your brain past its ‘Best Before’ date?” Tom’s colorful speech always amused Matt, and he always enjoyed spending time with him, but this time, sitting in the Starbucks across from his ‘starter-upper-sorry-we-don’t-have-a-coffee-maker’ office, he was disappointed in his reaction to his suggestion.

“Look, Jack has been following the same path now for far too long. But the world has changed. Customers know more about our business than we do about theirs and introducing a new product with just a datasheet and a Features & Benefit list isn’t working. This approach is costing us business, and Jack is costing me money. Someone needs to put his lack of market understanding in front of the Executive Management team meeting.”

Tom took off his glasses, and rubbed his eyes slowly. This was getting tense, and Matt had that I-don’t-care-what-anyone-says look. Time to diffuse things a little. “Ok, so what you’re saying is that Jack is about as useful as an ashtray on a motorbike. But even if that is true, is this the best way to solve things? Do you really want to lead a witch-hunt against Jack. This is not a Jack issue, it is a strategic company issue. ”

“Tom, I thought you’d understand,” Matt responded. “Jack, and the rest of the marketing team think that just because they’ve spoken to the analysts and done some market research, that they can tell us how it works in the field. But they rarely get in front of customers, and meeting with customers everyday is what we do. I’ve been successful selling ever since I came to JKHiggs, but now, I am losing to competition when I should win.”

“Ok”, Tom interrupted, “let’s look at this calmly. From what I heard, the marketing team is delivering more sales collateral than ever before, and built a really cool micro-site for Dynamix14. You can’t criticize their work-rate. What exactly are you saying?”

Matt took a long sip from his Americano, and sat back in the soft leather chair. “Ok, I admit I’m getting some leads; that’s not my problem, and I know marketing is investing heavily in brand awareness. There are more marketing materials than we have ever had in the past – but even if I could find the piece I need, I am still going to get my butt kicked if the competition is helping the customer to … how did Joanne at DeepEarth put it? – ‘help me think about my business in a whole new way’. We don’t know how to do that. We have not figured out how to connect our solutions to the customer’s business, and you know what, that’s actually the issue here. We have spent all of this time on our ‘Sales and Marketing Alignment Project’, when in fact we should have been thinking about the customer first. Henry in Engineering gets this stuff. Customers love him – he knows more about the impact we can have better than anyone on the planet. If we can get him in front of more customers, then maybe that will help. That’s what I need. That’s the answer.”

“Look Dude, you’ve nailed the problem – but not the solution. Henry doesn’t scale across 400 reps. If you think the marketing department at JKHiggs is going to help you solve this, then I’d like some of what you’re smoking. Your job is to sell. Do the research yourself. Use Google. Buy Henry lunch. If Jack is filling the top of the funnel, that’s just as much as you can expect. I wish I had someone hand me leads. Now, my dear friend, don’t be a whiner. Accept that your meeting today wasn’t great, but dust yourself off. Learn more about your customer’s industry and get back in the saddle.”

“I don’t know Tom” Matt sighed, “ I hear what you’re saying and I know you have my interests at heart, but customers are getting smarter and more knowledgeable all of the time. They are using social media to educate themselves on everything that’s going on; not just with us, but with our competitors, their industry and other companies like them. It’s not my pipeline volume I’m worried about; it’s my sales conversion rate and the pipeline velocity. If JKHiggs doesn’t sort this out, we will lose our position in the market and that will make my job harder. Marketing is investing in the wrong place, and something needs to be done about it. I think Jack needs a good dose of reality.”

Tom stood up and dropped his empty coffee cup in the trash. “Listen, I’ve got to get back to the day job. But ask some of the other guys what they think before you take on Jack, or maybe call the guys over at Innopartners and see if they have any openings. They seem to have figured it out.”

… and that’s where it ends.

(Depending on your input below we can find our what happens in the meeting between Matt and Jack.)

-o-

According to a recent Forrester Research report, only 36% of executives believe that sellers can have a valuable conversation with them about their business. The reality is that communicating value is no longer the job of the sales person. Buyers can learn all they need to know online. Winning sellers are those who can create value for their customers by helping them learn about the business issues they should be caring about.

Buyers value sellers who can offer a unique valuable perspective on the market, use their experience with other similar companies to help then to avoid potential land mines, and educate them on new issues that they should consider.

This is not just a sales issue. It is not just a marketing issue. It is not just a sales and marketing alignmentissue. It is truly a customer alignment issue that can be easily solved with a little bit of strategic thinking. Most companies already have in-house the knowledge they need to describe the customer’s business, their typical goals, pressures and problems that they are trying to solve – and why they built their products in the first place. But those tools are rarely in a format that’s easy accessible and readily consumable by sales. (Here’s something to consider.)

What do you think? Do you think Matt is right? What about Tom’s perspective? Does Matt’s situation sound familiar to you?